Considerations for the provision of psychosocial services for families following paediatric burn injury—A quantitative study

The purpose of the study was to quantify and report levels of psychosocial distress in a sample of parents of burned children to inform evidence-based recommendations for psychosocial support programmes. This paper reports on the cross-sectional quantitative strand of a mixed-methodology study. Standardised instruments measuring anxiety, depression, family functioning, personality, child behaviour and social experience were administered to 72 parents at different points after burn. Additionally, extracts from the Burn Specific Health Scale were adapted for use with parents and responses analysed descriptively. Between 69 and 33% of parents reported clinically significant anxiety and between 44 and 22% of parents reported clinically significant depression, at the inpatient and outpatient stage, respectively. Potential vulnerability markers for parental distress included lower emotional stability, younger age of mother and poorer family functioning. The wide range and high proportion of parents reporting clinically significant distress support the recommendation that screening should be a routine part of care. The relative importance of social factors over objective measurements of injury, such as TBSA, in explaining the observed levels of distress, supports the recommendation that routine assessment and a family-centred approach to the delivery of psychosocial support should be adopted and be offered to all parents, irrespective of the size of their child's burn.